A remnant of postal applications?
Application documents often represent the first contact between applicants and companies. A central component of complete application documents is the cover letter. As a result, almost every one of us is familiar with the challenge: writing a cover letter. Because what do you write to stand out from the crowd of other applicants? Google or a career advisor is often used to answer this question. The result: cover letters increasingly consist of a series of phrases recommended on job portals.
The result: companies usually do not recognize applicants' actual motivation, but primarily their ability to represent themselves well. Of course, the applicants' own contribution is also difficult to recognize due to the large number of templates. It is therefore hardly surprising that no significant connection can be proven in science between the content of the cover letter and the suitability of the applicants (Kanning 2013).
More and more companies, such as Deutsche Bahn, are therefore dispensing with the cover letter in their application process. This has a number of key benefits.
Relieve HR managers
First, omitting the cover letter naturally reduces the time required to review application documents. This is particularly important as HR managers often have hundreds of applications to review. It is therefore hardly surprising that they state that they often do not read the letter or read it only with little concentration (Standard, 2017).
Relieve applicants
Secondly, there is also relief for applicants. Because directing a cover letter specifically to a company often takes a lot of time. As a result, particularly in the age of digital and increasingly mobile applications, the cover letter represents a non-negligible hurdle for applicants. It is therefore not surprising that the obligation to write a cover letter often results in applicants deciding not to apply.
The consequence: Companies that require a cover letter even for digital applications risk that actually suitable applicants will decide not to apply.
Cover Letter with Filter Function — An Advantage of a Cover Letter?
Of course, the effort associated with the cover letter can also be seen as an advantage: This is how companies (apparently) ensure that only people who have sufficient motivation to write a cover letter apply. As a result, a cover letter often says more about the applicants' motivation to write one than its content about the intrinsic motivation for the job.
How useful such a misuse of the cover letter is, as part of an increasing shift towards an employee market, is left to each company to decide. HR managers should be aware of one thing: it is increasingly applicants who are choosing their jobs, and this applies in particular to highly qualified talent. Companies that are heavily guided by formal criteria of questionable significance will therefore lose many highly qualified candidates in their selection process.
Our Conclusion
In an age of fast, digital, and mobile applications, cover letters have no place.
Sources
- Schmidt, F.L., & Hunter, J.E. (1998). The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 262–274.
- Schuler, H. (1992). The multimodal recruitment interview. Diagnostica, 38, 281–300.
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